Mass Pike says goodbye to Fast Lane’

At a cost of $1.2 million, it’s not E-Z, but state officials say an ongoing campaign to get rid of the Mass Pike’s redundant “Fast Lane” signs is necessary to avoid confusion. For the past month, crews have been working their way west to east along the Pike, replacing the old Fast Lane signs at the ...

At a cost of $1.2 million, it’s not E-Z, but state officials say an ongoing campaign to get rid of the Mass Pike’s redundant “Fast Lane” signs is necessary to avoid confusion.

For the past month, crews have been working their way west to east along the Pike, replacing the old Fast Lane signs at the tolls with new ones for E-ZPass, an electronic toll collection system that is now used by Massachusetts, as well as 13 other states. Tomorrow night, they’ll begin swapping out signs at Exit 13 in Framingham.

“Cash Only” signs are also being updated as part of the project, which includes the Airport Tunnel and Tobin Bridge tolls as well.

The change, heralded this past month by temporary signs along the Pike saying “COMING SOON: We are Changing Our Name,” is entirely cosmetic, as drivers who have transponders won’t have to do anything different, and existing Fast Lane discounts will still apply.

“Fast Lane is just a name Massachusetts chose to use when it launched electronic toll collection in 1998,” said MassDOT spokeswoman Sara Lavoie, who added it’s run the same way in the state as E-ZPass.

Lavoie said the sign changes are mostly aimed at eliminating any confusion among drivers, especially out-of-staters, about whether their E-ZPass tags will work going through the Fast Lane booths.

Purple and white E-ZPass signs are already displayed at the tolls, but are much smaller than the large, yellow and black Fast Lane signs.

“We don’t want drivers to think about which lane they have to use,” Lavoie said.

Other MassDOT officials have said the change will help prevent befuddled drivers from trying to make dangerous lane switches approaching the tolls.

Most of the project’s $1.2 million cost is being picked up by a federal safety grant, Lavoie said. The Western Turnpike Capital fund is chipping in $185,000.

Avon contractor Road Safe Traffic Systems has been hired to do the work.

Apart from that expense, the toll’s financial operations or cost to users won’t be affected, Lavoie said. But the project is erasing the last remnant of a former revenue generating Pike initiative: the toll sponsor program.

Existing green signs for Citizens Bank, whose sponsorship expired last fall, are being removed along with the Fast Lane signs. The deal with the bank brought in close to a half-million dollars annually in the last few years of the program, which the state eventually abandoned because it ran afoul of the Federal Highway Administration.

“I am told that sponsorship of ETC (electronic toll collection) signs has always been frowned upon by federal highway, but Massachusetts proceeded anyway beginning in 1998,” Lavoie said, adding that Fleet Bank and Bank of America were early sponsors. “It was time to upgrade the Fast Lane signs due to their age, the Citizen’s Bank contract had expired, and here we are today putting up E-ZPass signs.”

Page 2 of 2 - About 1.7 million Massachusetts drivers currently use transponders, according to MassDOT.

(Scott O’Connell can be reached at 508-626-4449 or soconnell@wickedlocal.com.)